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Assistive technology (AT) is a term for assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly. Disabled people often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with assistance. ADLs are self-care activities that include toileting, mobility (ambulation), eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, and personal device care. Assistive technology can ameliorate the effects of disabilities that limit the ability to perform ADLs. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. For example, wheelchairs provide independent mobility for those who cannot walk, while assistive eating devices can enable people who cannot feed themselves to do so. Due to assistive technology, disabled people have an opportunity of a more positive and easygoing lifestyle, with an increase in "social participation," "security and control," and a greater chance to "reduce institutional costs without significantly increasing household expenses." In schools, assistive technology can be critical in allowing students with disabilities access the general education curriculum. Students who experience challenges writing or keyboarding, for example, can use voice recognition software instead. Assistive technologies assist people who are recovering from strokes and people who have abstained injuries that effect their daily tasks.
Communication is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term can also refer to the message itself, or the field of inquiry studying these transmissions, also known as communication studies. The precise definition of communication is disputed. Controversial issues are whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication does not just transmit meaning but also creates it. Models of communication aim to provide a simplified overview of its main components and their interaction. Many models include the idea that a source uses a coding system to express information in the form of a message. The source uses a channel to send the message to a receiver who has to decode it in order to understand its meaning. Channels are usually discussed in terms of the senses used to perceive the message, like hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste.
Makaton is a communication tool with speech, signs, and symbols to enable people with disabilities or learning disabilities to communicate. Makaton supports the development of essential communication skills such as attention, listening, comprehension, memory and expressive speech and language. The Makaton language programme has been used with individuals who have cognitive impairments, autism, Down syndrome, specific language impairment, multisensory impairment and acquired neurological disorders that have negatively affected the ability to communicate, including stroke and dementia patients.
Facilitated communication (FC), or supported typing, is a scientifically discredited technique that claims to allow non-verbal people, such as those with autism, to communicate. The technique involves a facilitator guiding the disabled person's arm or hand in an attempt to help them type on a keyboard or other such device which they are unable to properly use if unfacilitated.
Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab key to accept a suggestion or the down arrow key to accept one of several.
Reading for special needs has become an area of interest as the understanding of reading has improved. Teaching children with special needs how to read was not historically pursued due to perspectives of a Reading Readiness model. This model assumes that a reader must learn to read in a hierarchical manner such that one skill must be mastered before learning the next skill. This approach often led to teaching sub-skills of reading in a decontextualized manner. This style of teaching made it difficult for children to master these early skills, and as a result, did not advance to more advanced literacy instruction and often continued to receive age-inappropriate instruction.
Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) encompasses the communication methods used to supplement or replace speech or writing for those with impairments in the production or comprehension of spoken or written language. AAC is used by those with a wide range of speech and language impairments, including congenital impairments such as cerebral palsy, intellectual impairment and autism, and acquired conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. AAC can be a permanent addition to a person's communication or a temporary aid. Stephen Hawking used AAC to communicate through a speech-generating device.
Intensive interaction is an approach for teaching communication skills to autistic people, severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties who are still at early stages of development. The approach focuses on teaching the fundamentals of communication – the communication concepts and performances that precede speech development, though it may include many people who have some speech and language development.
Speech-generating devices (SGDs), also known as voice output communication aids, are electronic augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems used to supplement or replace speech or writing for individuals with severe speech impairments, enabling them to verbally communicate. SGDs are important for people who have limited means of interacting verbally, as they allow individuals to become active participants in communication interactions. They are particularly helpful for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) but recently have been used for children with predicted speech deficiencies.
Ace Centre, previously ACE Centre is a non-profit organization in England that supports people with communications difficulties.
Communicative ecology is a conceptual model used in the field of media and communications research.
Tangible symbols are a type of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) that uses objects or pictures that share a perceptual relationship with the items they represent as symbols. A tangible symbol's relation to the item it represents is perceptually obvious and concrete – the visual or tactile properties of the symbol resemble the intended item. Tangible Symbols can easily be manipulated and are most strongly associated with the sense of touch. These symbols can be used by individuals who are not able to communicate using speech or other abstract symbol systems, such as sign language. However, for those who have the ability to communicate using speech, learning to use tangible symbols does not hinder further developing acquisition of natural speech and/or language development, and may even facilitate it.
The "rhetoric of social intervention" (RSI) model is a systemic communication theory of how human beings symbolically constitute, maintain, and change social systems. The RSI model was developed in the writings of communication theorist William R. Brown. The model provides a framework for analyzing and interpreting social system change and its side effects from a communication perspective. It also suggests a methodology for acting as an intervener to encourage and/or discourage social system change. The model offers an alternative approach to understanding social system change by its emphasis on communication as the driver of change in contrast to models that focus on social, political, economic, and technological forces as catalysts for change. The RSI model is envisioned as three communication subsystems that function as starting points for interpreting or enacting social system change. The subsystems, known as attention, power, and need, form the RSI model framework. This entry describes the assumptive foundations of the RSI model. Then it discusses the attention, power, and need patterns of communication that that model identifies as points for generating social system change and continuity.
David R. Beukelman, Ph.D., was a speech-language pathologist who specialized in augmentative and alternative communication and communication disorders associated with neurological conditions. He was the Barkley Professor Emeritus of Communication Disorders at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and used to be the Director of Research and Education of the Communication Disorders Division, Munroe/Meyer Institute of Genetics and Rehabilitation, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska.
Intercultural communicative competence in computer-supported collaborative learning, is the application of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), to provide intercultural communicative competence (ICC) to its users.
Partner-assisted scanning or listener-assisted scanning is an augmentative and alternative communication technique used to enable a person with severe speech impairments to communicate. The approach is used with individuals who, due to sickness or disability, have severe motor impairments and good memory and attention skills. It is used as an alternative to direct access to symbols, pictures, or speech generating devices when these are not used.
Semantic compaction, (Minspeak), conceptually described as polysemic (multi-meaning) iconic encoding, is one of the three ways to represent language in Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). It is a system utilized in AAC devices in which sequences of icons are combined in order to form a word or a phrase. The goal is to increase independent communication in individuals who cannot use speech. Minspeak is the only patented system for Semantic Compaction and is based on multi-meaning icons that code vocabulary in short sequences determined by rule-driven patterns. Minspeak has been used with both children and adults with various disabilities, including cerebral palsy, motor speech disorders, developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, and adult onset disabilities such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
Switch access scanning is an indirect selection technique, used with switch access by an assistive technology user, including those who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), to choose items from the selection set. Unlike direct selection, a scanner can only make selections when the scanning indicator of the electronic device is on the desired choice. The scanning indicator moves through items by highlighting each item on the screen, or by announcing each item via voice output, and then the user activates a switch to select the item. The speed and pattern of scanning, as well as the way items are selected, are individualized to the physical, visual and cognitive capabilities of the user. While there may be different reasons for using scanning, the most common is a physical disability resulting in reduced motor control for direct selection. Communication during scanning is slower and less efficient than direct selection and scanning requires more cognitive skill. Scanning using technology has an advantage allows the user to be independent in controlling the assistive technology for those with only one voluntary movement.
Janice Light is an American academic who holds the Hintz Family Endowed Chair in Children's Communicative Competence in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Pennsylvania State University. As a Distinguished Professor, she teaches graduate courses and seminars in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and has developed an internationally recognized research program in AAC.
The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is an augmentative and alternative communication system developed and produced by Pyramid Educational Consultants, Inc. PECS was developed in 1985 at the Delaware Autism Program by Andy Bondy, PhD, and Lori Frost, MS, CCC-SLP. The developers of PECS noticed that traditional communication techniques, including speech imitation, sign language, and picture point systems, relied on the teacher to initiate social interactions and none focused on teaching students to initiate interactions. Based on these observations, Bondy and Frost created a functional means of communication for individuals with a variety of communication challenges. Although PECS was originally developed for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), its use has become much more widespread. Through the years, PECS has been successfully implemented with individuals with varying diagnoses across the aged span. PECS is an evidence-based practice that has been highly successful with regard to the development of functional communication skills.
References
- Beukelman, D., Garrett, K., & Yorkston K. (2007). Augmentative Communication Strategies for Adults with Acute or Chronic Medical Conditions. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.
- Beukelman, D., & Mirenda, P. (2005). Augmentative & Alternative Communication: Supporting Children & Adults with Complex Communication Needs. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.
- Lloyd, L., Fuller, D., & Arvidson, H. (1997). Augmentative and Alternative Communication: A Handbook of Principles and Practices. Massachusetts, NY: Allyn and Bacon Viacom Company.
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